


You'll Never Get Away From Me

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s lost Phil. No, he hasn’t. Phil isn’t lost. He’s just not here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Never Get Away From Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Misachan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misachan/gifts).



> Written for the Clint/Coulson holiday exchange over on livejournal. Lots of good stuff [over there.](http://cc-exchange.livejournal.com/) Thanks to Infiniteeight for an awesome beta.

_So fucked. So fucked. So fucked._  
  
It’s a mantra in Clint’s head as he scrambles up the side of a worn brick building, climbing freehand with no harness because his other option is to be on the ground where there are people already lining up to shoot at him. He’s got a bullet graze on his thigh that burns like a son of a bitch and a pounding headache from the pistol whipping he took right before he kicked hard enough to break the asshole’s kneecap and made a break for it.  
  
There are six men after him, all of them with automatic weapons, and Clint’s mantra gets louder until it’s a scream in his head because the other option is to let the  _other_  mantra get a chance to break free, and Clint can’t do that.  
  
The other mantra is:  _Lost Phil. Lost Phil. Lost Phil._  
  
Because he  _hasn’t_  lost Phil, he scolds himself as he gets both hands on the roof and pulls himself up, flopping to the ground for a moment and taking huge, gasping breaths before pushing himself to his feet and moving to the ledge across the way. They’re deep in Eastern Europe, where the buildings are so close together it’s more a long skip than a jump, and Clint is pathetically grateful that if he’s going to get compromised and tied up and pistol-whipped and shot and lose Phil ( _not lost_  he tells himself;  _not lost, just not here_ ), at least he won’t have to worry about his landing as he jumps between rooftops.  
  
He makes it across four before he even looks back. The men who were after him are nowhere in sight. Not on the rooftops, not on the ground. Clint’s instincts tell him he’s probably got a rocket launcher or sniper in his future, so he finds a good, stable drainpipe, shimmies his way halfway down the building, and lets himself in through an open window.  
  
There’s an old man at a table eating a sandwich and reading a book. He’s wearing a button-down shirt and gray slacks, and he looks like a professor. He gapes at Clint, but he manages not to drop the sandwich.  
  
“Hi,” Clint says.  
  
“Hello,” the man replies, his accent thick, but the word distinct.  
  
“English?” Clint asks because his head is pounding, and he’d really rather not try to remember all his verb conjugations at the moment.  
  
“A little,” the man replies.  
  
“First aid kit?” Clint asks.  
  
“You are?” the man replies.  
  
“Friendly. Sore.”  
  
“Shot at,” the man says, pointing to Clint’s thigh, where the bullet grazed and cut open his cargos and has now left a very obvious line of blood.  
  
“Yup,” Clint says.  
  
“Sit,” the man says. He points to the chair across from his own, and Clint drops into it, breathing deep to get his heartbeat back under control while checking for unfriendlies out the window. No one goes by in the time it takes the man to walk down a hallway and into what Clint presumes is the bathroom and come back out with a small, green toolbox.  
  
The toolbox is organized by supplies, bandages and disinfectant piled in the top two trays, and when those are pulled up, gauze and other wrappings in the middle tray, and under that, tweezers and scissors and needles and surgical thread.  
  
“Doctor?” Clint asks.  
  
“Soldier,” the man replies. He pushes up the short sleeve of his shirt and shows Clint a tattoo that is clearly from military service, albeit a while ago.   
  
Clint’s running from rebels intent on a full, bloody coup to overthrow the government. He heard them talk about the number of people they hope to kill. They said they killed Phil already and sent his head in a box to the White House, but Clint doesn’t believe it. Clint won’t believe it. He thinks, perhaps, that the man in front of him dabbing at his thigh graze might know more than he lets on.  
  
“Dangerous neighborhood,” Clint says.  
  
“Home,” the man replies.  
  
“You’ve got a rebel faction about four blocks from here.”  
  
“Yes,” the man agrees.  
  
“And a damn fine view of the street.”  
  
The man reaches into the toolbox for another cotton ball.   
  
“Do they pass often?” Clint asks.  
  
The man puts more disinfectant on the cotton ball.  
  
Clint switches to the local language. “How much English do you really understand?” he asks in an undertone.  
  
“I am fluent,” the man replies in the local language, “but it draws attention.”  
  
“You see them pass by,” Clint says. “The rebels.”  
  
“Daily.”  
  
“I’m looking for a man.”  
  
“You and many others.”  
  
Clint’s gut twists, but he presses on. “Five-ten. Blond and blue-eyed. Wearing a very nice suit and probably looking like he wasn’t all that scared to be at gun point.” My stupidly heroic husband, Clint thinks but doesn’t say.   
  
The man thinks as he puts a gauze pad over Clint’s bullet graze and presses tape to the edges. “Yes,” he says as he takes out black thread and a sewing needle and starts to stitch up the rip in Clint’s pants. “Yesterday,” he says. “They went east.”  
  
“Do you know where?”  
  
The man does not speak again until he finishes stitching the rip, cutting away the loose thread with his teeth. “You have a concussion,” he says. “Your left pupil is not adjusting to the light.”  
  
Oh, good, Clint thinks. At least all his worry about Phil  _isn’t_  causing the pounding headache and queasiness he’s been ignoring. “I’ll manage,” he says. “Where did they go?”  
  
Four more blocks east, Clint finds out. The man sends him on the way with a murmur of “good luck” and two pistols he had hidden in a false-bottom drawer. Clint tucks the pistols into his waist band, takes the stocking cap the man gives him to hide the bruises blooming on the side of his face, and heads east.  
  
It’s an office building, full of people and noise. Everything above the ground, Clint has been informed, is completely legitimate, but the building is owned by a man who sides with the rebels, and the basements and sub-basements are off-limits for reasons no one will say out loud.  
  
Clint bullshits his way past the security desk, gets on the elevator, goes up six floors, gets out, crosses to the stairwell, and takes the stairs to the basement, running into no one. There are two men guarding the door to the basement, and Clint considers his options. He could pull his knife from his boot, run up and kill them both. He could show himself and lead them on a chase. He could shoot them and worry about the noise later. His vision is starting to blur on the edges from his concession and the exertion he’s putting himself through. He chooses option four.  
  
Clint learned a lot of tricks in the circus: archery, of course, but also how to walk a tightrope and how to tumble and, courtesy of the lead clown in clown alley, how to throw his voice. He’s not great at impressions, but he doesn’t need to be. He yells, “Down with the rebel scum!” at the top of his voice, throwing it down an adjacent hallway, and when one guard goes to check, Clint steps up behind the other and presses his knife to his neck.  
  
“The American,” he says. “In the suit. Where is he?”  
  
The guard doesn’t want to answer. Clint presses the knife close enough to draw blood. “I will slit your throat.”  
  
The guard shakes a little, and there’s a sharp smell in the air. He’s wet himself. This is entirely out of his pay grade, Clint is sure. “I will let you live if you point in the right direction and don’t tell your friend.”  
  
The guard points to the door he’s standing in front of, points left, and then holds up three fingers.  
  
“Go in, go left, third door,” Clint says.  
  
The guard nods. There is sweat at his temple.  
  
Clint removes the knife, clubs the man on the back of the neck with the side of his fist, and gets in the door just as the other guard shouts an all clear from halfway down the hall.  
  
The basement is dank but not actually wet. It smells like mildew and rotting bodies, and Clint hates that the lighting is stark. There’s no place for him to properly hide and no way for him to avoid seeing the recently dead bodies piled in a corner. The only condolence is that none of them are Phil.  
  
He turns left, finds the third door on the left, and opens it. There’s an empty chair surrounded by pieces of rope. There’s a tray of knives with blood on them. There is the tiniest sound of air as someone drops from the ceiling.   
  
Clint holds himself very still while Phil looks at him, one hand holding a knife that matches the set on the tray, the other arm hanging limp and blood-caked at his side. Clint wants to move forward and grab Phil and anchor them both, but he knows Phil and Phil’s reaction to capture and torture and knows he needs to give Phil a few seconds to snap out of survival mode and see that Clint is Clint.  
  
Phil’s hand drops, the knife still gripped but now pointed at the ground. “There you are,” he says.  
  
“Your arm,” Clint replies.  
  
“They gouged me a few times,” Phil says. “Hurt like a bastard, but it doesn’t feel badly damaged.”  
  
“When did they leave?”  
  
“Five minutes ago.”  
  
“Did they say anything?”  
  
“That they’d be back in ten.”  
  
Clint steps forward and reaches for Phil’s waist. Phil lifts his bad arm as much as he can and lets Clint slip an arm around him. His left pants leg is in tatters, and the leg itself has a series of cuts all the way up the calf. “We should leave, then.”  
  
Phil doesn’t say anything more, just helps Clint move as fast as possible by concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. When they step out of the basement, the guards aren’t there, and Clint is glad the one he scared has enough sense to make himself scarce.   
  
“There’s an exit to the outside next to the stairwell door for the first floor,” Phil says.  
  
“I saw it,” Clint replies, and he doesn’t ask how Phil even noticed. Phil always notices. It’s why he’s so good at what he does. Gun to his back and surrounded by a pack of rebels who want his head on a literal plate? Fuck that. There are exits to remember.  
  
They get to the exit, but before they go through, Clint stops and cups Phil’s head, and kisses him with everything he’s got. He can’t wait any longer to reconnect, his fuzzy brain pounding against his skull, and he needs something to keep him moving towards the old soldier he just left, the one he is certain will open the door and patch Phil up without a question.  
  
“You have a concussion,” Phil says when they pull apart and he looks Clint in the eyes.  
  
“Yup,” Clint replies. “It’s okay, though. I know a guy.”  
  
They push open the door and walk out together, Clint walking so Phil’s pant leg and sliced up sleeve are somewhat concealed. Phil tucking the hand of his bad arm into the pocket of his slacks so it looks less suspicious, pressing the knife up against his wrist so it’s not visible to passerby.  
  
The mantra in Clint’s head has switched over. No more  _so fucked_. No more  _lost Phil_. It’s a comfort now, the words bouncing around in his head.  
  
 _We’re okay. We’re okay. We’re okay._


End file.
